Common Text

The Common Reading Program is an essential piece of your First-Year Experience at Wright State University. It was developed:

To expose you to our academic atmosphere from the time you arrive on campus for Orientation

To provide a common academic experience for all first-year students by giving you the opportunity to engage with your peers in intellectual discussions both inside and outside the classroom.

To communicate the expectation that you will begin to read actively and critically, make judgments about the validity of what you read and be able to discuss challenging, sometimes conflicting, ideas.

You will also be provided with a series of interconnected academic and beyond-the-classroom activities that will challenge your critical thinking and evaluation of the text through your Learning Community and in many of your General Education courses.

We ask you to become an active member of the Raider community from the start by participating in this shared reading experience, discussing a controversial book, considering the issues it raises, formulating your own views, and sharing them with your teachers and classmates.

Common Text 2017

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice & Redemptionby Bryan Stevenson

From one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time comes an unforgettable true story about the redeeming potential of mercy. Bryan Stevenson was a gifted young attorney when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending the poor, the wrongly condemned, and those trapped in the furthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man sentenced to die for a notorious murder he didn’t commit. The case drew Stevenson into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinkmanship– and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever.

There will be multiple events related to the Common Text on campus through the year. For example, The Educational Resource Center (ERC) in Allyn Hall will host The Big Read. At this event students, faculty, and staff will be reading the book aloud, from cover to cover!

Common Text 2016

Serious and silly, unifying and polarizing, presidential elections have become events that Americans love and hate. Yet presidential elections also provoke and inspire mass engagement of ordinary citizens in the political system. Pivotal Tuesdays looks back at four pivotal presidential elections of the past 100 years to show how they shaped the twentieth century. Exploring the personalities, critical moments, and surprises of these races, Margaret O'Mara shows how and why candidates won or lost and examines the effects these campaigns had on the presidencies that followed. But this isn't just a book about politics. It is about the evolution of a nation and the history made by ordinary people who cast their ballots.

Previous Common Texts

Previous Common Texts used by Wright State University

Just Mercy, '17-'18

Pivotal Tuesdays: Four Elections that Shaped the Twentieth Century, '16-'17